Took advantage of the snow and day off to wander down to watch it at my local cinema today.

Perfectly enjoyable with some good performances from Waltz, Jackson and DiCaprio, but wasn't so keen on Foxx. Like Inglourious Basterds before it, Django contains some rather prolonged scenes of tension before outpourings of extreme, gory violence. While I enjoyed these, they were a tad excessive in their length - something I thought was better managed in Inglourious.

Needed a trim in the 2nd and particularly the 3rd act - SPOILER - certain characters were missed in the final 20-25 minutes.

It has been twenty-one years since the arrival of Quentin Tarantino with his masterful debut Reservoir Dogs and since then, we all ought to know the mechanics of a Tarantino film. He is a man who will constantly reference films and his sharp dialogue which has become a trademark, so I imagine Tarantino is a label, certainly there are influenced films that are considered “Tarantino-esque”. As his seventh feature (or eighth if you count Kill Bill as two) is nominated for five Oscars and has gained controversy, Mr Brown is back and purer than ever.

Two years before the Civil War, set in the antebellum era of the Deep South and Old West, the freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) travels across the United States with the bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) on a mission to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington) from Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a cruel and charismatic plantation owner.

For those who as cine-literate as Tarantino, will remember Sergio Corbucci’s Django of which its eponymous drifter (played by Franco Nero who cameos in Unchained) had been the star of over thirty spaghetti westerns, as well as influencing Takashi Miike’s Japanese western Sukiyaki Western Django which co-stars good old Quentin. As his love for spaghetti westerns has shined through his work, his very own spin on the genre has been long awaited.

Like his WWII epic Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino is putting his own spin on history as with Django Unchained, he is telling a story set in America's pre-Civil War Deep South through the eyes of a slave who becomes a free man and then a bounty hunter against “white folk” whilst attempting to save his wife who is seen as this ghostly figure during his journey. There has been much controversy over the film’s heavy usage of the N-word as well as the extreme violence. Regarding the latter, this is what you expect from the director of the ear-slicing Dogs, and yet the violence here is also depicted in an exploitation fashion as the blood just spurts out.

As for the accusation of the overuse of the N-word, Tarantino is just depicting the language of that time, whether historically accurate or not, it’s no different to any prejudiced words of today or before. Despite the harsh language and strong violence, Tarantino finds humour in places you don’t expect, the standout being a hilarious conversation from a gang of the Ku Klux Klan (led by Don Johnson and Jonah Hill) regarding the difficulty of wearing their bag heads. Nearly three hours long, the film can be a very talky piece but unlike Inglourious, there are some great shootouts that are thrilling and funny.

While Jamie Foxx is great as the eponymous Django who can have a commanding presence, even with his blue valet suit, it is the supporting cast around him that truly stand out. Along with another great performance from Christoph Waltz as the sly and eccentric bounty hunter posing as a dentist, Samuel L. Jackson as the scene-stealing house slave who is foul-mouthed and scary, while every line of his is comically disturbing. If there is any snobbery that should be directed towards the Oscars, is that there is no nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio for his extraordinary performance as Calvin Candie who is truly terrifying and unlike any role DiCaprio has explored before.

Tarantino’s revisionist telling on America's pre-Civil War Deep South is ridiculously entertaining as it is bloody, daring and hilarious. Pure Tarantino enjoyment!

I'm not the one who made a reference to somebody who died tragically, you stupid man.

Yes because I obviously meant someone should rise from the dead. /s

Go watch the film, cretin.

No, you made a terrible, stupid and worst of all, unfunny comment about him and Sally Menke. So, you deserve to be called a stupid man. I got what you said and your HIGH-LA-RIOUS intentions, they were fucking stupid. You shame everyone related to you and yourself.

I mean seriously, criticize Tarantino for indulgence all you want, that's also a very legitimate criticism, but it would be better if you left those sort of comments out.

< Message edited by Deviation -- 18/1/2013 8:19:54 PM >

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Dpp1978 There are certainly times where calling a person a cunt is not only reasonable, it is a gross understatement.

I'm not a big Tarantino fan, but this was my favourite of his films by a country mile. I loved it - it was just utterly entertaining. Any film which can make me like Jamie Foxx must be doing something right.

I felt the film went downhill a bit after - SPOILER - Candie figured them out and everything went to hell, but that permitting I thought it was a fantastic film. I'm a hard sell on four star films, but this was an easy four stars in my opinion.

Django Unchained was completely brilliant. First off, if you've never been a Tarantino fan, this isn't going to change your mind, it's unmistakably a QT movie. If you are a fan, then my god you will love this.

For his latest film, Tarantino has combined exploitation, slavery, cowboys, bounty hunters, insane violence, some of the best shootout's I've ever seen, hip hop music and romance. And it works in a way that no other film maker could ever dream of doing with those elements, nobody else could have made this film.

It's also a film full of great performances. Foxx is good, there are undoubtedly stronger actors out there that could have been used for the role, but he definitely has the look down, and he did really well considering his status as an actor. Waltz is absolutely fantastic, Jackson is in one of his best roles ever, but DiCaprio steals the movie. He's electrifying as Calvin Candie, the evil slave trader who has a hold of Django's wife. There is one particular scene set at the dinner table that's up there with the best stuff Tarantino has ever filmed, and the best stuff DiCaprio has ever acted.

Talking of the best stuff he's ever filmed, there is a shootout (or a few) that is almost indescribable. It's insane, blood literally sprays and squirts everywhere taking what he did in Kill Bill to another level, it's totally thrilling and it's funny, not to mention it's set to a hip hop soundtrack that fits perfectly with the scene and the film in general. Wow. Another aspect he's always been recognized for his homages and his samples from other films, and the music samples here are brilliant, he's never used them to better effect. The homages to the genre are there, but with that famous Tarantino twist.

From the moment Waltz appears on screen this is one of the most down right entertaining films I've probably ever seen. There is a slight hiccup when Tarantino makes a comeo because he possesses so little acting chops, but I actually found it funny eventually, and it resulted in a great climax to that scene that made it all worth it. The romance story between Django and his wife is really well done, and it's the first time Tarantino has ever done anything like that. I won't ruin anything, but for the last half I was sat there with the most ridiculous smile on my face.

With any Quentin Tarantino film the expectation is always going to be at its highest. So what starts off as a new good looking film from QT turns into more of an event. Django really did live up to my expectations and I hope any other QT fan out there thought the same. When he first announced the release of Django Unchained, I thought okay another meaningless title, what is it going to bring and is it going to be as good as his previous films, is this is where it goes down hill for Quentin. Really I was just being pessimistic. Because yes it was just as intriguing as any other of his previous films. Quentin's love for cult cinema is commonly unknown by many, which was why I knew there was a western being loaded into the Quentin cannon anytime soon. He mentioned in one of his interviews that a big inspiration to him was Sergio Leone and his classic spaghetti western 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'. So to see Quentin tackle the ethics of the western genre made the release that much more of a double event. But strictly speaking Django isn't a western. If anything it should be tagged as a 'Southern' coming from the man himself. It has nothing to do with the western genre.

Unlike Inglorious Bastards, Django doesn't try to be a riot and doesn't try to be as politically correct as possible (referring to WW2). It concentrates more on character development, pointing at Django (Jamie Foxx). For the first time in Quentin history the story is more linear and concentrates on the portrayal and the story of one character's journey. Also there are no shifts in time like Quentin's previous films. We don't see Travolta being shot by Willis and then reappearing in a later scene which is based before that scene. This doesn't leave you so confused but that doesn't mean you're not left confused at times during the film. After all that is QT job. Which is why as Quentin fans we need to see the film another two to three times to get the full QT experience. Also we don't get 'Chapter 2' or anything like that. Django goes for the more 'Rescue the princess' type theme. The story sees Django a slave being "Unchained" by a bounty hunter slash dentist Dr King Schultz (QT latest discovery Christoph Waltz) who won his deserved Oscar for Inglorious Bastards in 2009. However over the campfire he is amazed to know that Django is married to another slave called Broomhilda Von Shaft (Kerry Washington) even though Foxx and Washington played a couple in Ray.

Now as this is a 'Rescue the princess' film, there is a villain. Django Unchained's finest element is the new Robert De Niro, AKA Leonardo DiCaprio's Calvin Candie. A plantation owner in the south. Who keeps slaves including Django's love. QT tries to make him a perfect, spiteful, prone to flattery, selfish, vain man who wants nothing else but money. But the result is naive and funny which doesn't disappoint. Now me being negative. Quentin's attempt to include black comedy leaves the viewer slightly confused and doesn't want to know why they are confused either. I know there has been some controversy on the films running time and frankly it is not long ENOUGH. It flew by for me and I feel that some scenes could have been longer but I have a hunch they were shortened for the best. But other than that the only other advice is don't watch the trailer as it doesn't do the film justice!

In conclusion Django Unchained is a delight to watch from two hours before the film starts to the end credits. Verdict: Another bloody, well scripted masterpiece that QT has fed to our hungry eyes. Django really does help define QT as one of the finest directors in modern day filming. The only issue now is, can he keep it up? Either way this film of course gets an A+.

I can understand why people have said that this movie is too long, and drags in places, but personally, my reaction to this movie was an unequivocal "Holy shit, this is awesome!" I'm a big fan of all but two of Tarantino's movies, but this one is the best since Pulp Fiction - replacing Inglourious Basterds as my third favourite Tarantino movie. One of the best things about it is that despite the long scenes of dialogue (something that has always been a hallmark of Tarantino movies, and isn't the recent phenomenon people seem to think it is), and the graphic violence, it's the least "Tarantinoesque" of any of his movies. Certainly the first since Jackie Brown that didn't seem like every scene was a tribute to another movie. DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson are the standouts as the main villains, but I thought the entire cast were excellent... right down to Jonah Hill in his brief cameo, which by the way is one of the most laugh out loud funny scenes in a non-comedy I've seen in a while. (10/10)

I'm not a big Tarantino fan, but this was my favourite of his films by a country mile. I loved it - it was just utterly entertaining. Any film which can make me like Jamie Foxx must be doing something right.

I felt the film went downhill a bit after - SPOILER - Candie figured them out and everything went to hell, but that permitting I thought it was a fantastic film. I'm a hard sell on four star films, but this was an easy four stars in my opinion.

Tarantino should not act however.

Pretty much sums up my feelings.

Wasn't tremendously keen on Inglorious Basterds, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. It could've done with trimming for sure but the film flew by for me. Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio were superb and whilst Tarantino did do a fair bit of indulging himself, I can forgive him seeing as the film is so enjoyable.

You were on a role; your self-indulgent streak was in check (despite occasionally threatening to rear its ugly head with pointless captions and song cues which at points disintegrated the tension & the suspension of disbelief), your narrative was free of tedious chapter titles / a meandering structure and you even suggested that our heroes were appalled by the nastiness of proceedings.

Then "the handshake" happens and everything I previously disliked about your approach (Kill Bill onwards) came to the surface all over again.

Why must you cast yourself in your films? Why must you go over the top with your slow motions and choices of music? (both what and when it's used) You didn't do this with Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction? Is that because it was cheaper to do? Ironically, it was also better. Why must your protagonists develop a masochistic streak in the final 30 minutes - making them as detestable as the people signified as the baddies? Why must you suggest a natural ending, before defying that and going on for an additional 30 minutes that offers nothing but OTT violence, awkward plotting and punctures the sense of drama like a balloon?

You're a talented guy Quentin, but I'm fed up with your obsession with revenge pieces. It really is time to change the record.

I enjoyed it. Yes it's a bit long. But it's still entertaining. I found it all a little too comic-book-ey, but enjoyed it all the same.

As for the comments about Tarantino's editor, anyone who suggests the change in editor is to blame for anything they dislike about this film, is demonstrating that they know absolutely nothing about filmmaking. The editor did just fine, and Tarantino would clearly have final say over everything anyway.

You were on a role; your self-indulgent streak was in check (despite occasionally threatening to rear its ugly head with pointless captions and song cues which at points disintegrated the tension & the suspension of disbelief), your narrative was free of tedious chapter titles / a meandering structure and you even suggested that our heroes were appalled by the nastiness of proceedings.

Then "the handshake" happens and everything I previously disliked about your approach (Kill Bill onwards) came to the surface all over again.

Why must you cast yourself in your films? Why must you go over the top with your slow motions and choices of music? (both what and when it's used) You didn't do this with Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction? Is that because it was cheaper to do? Ironically, it was also better. Why must your protagonists develop a masochistic streak in the final 30 minutes - making them as detestable as the people signified as the baddies? Why must you suggest a natural ending, before defying that and going on for an additional 30 minutes that offers nothing but OTT violence, awkward plotting and punctures the sense of drama like a balloon?

You're a talented guy Quentin, but I'm fed up with your obsession with revenge pieces. It really is time to change the record.

3/5

This. Absolutely agree, I loved it until the handshake. I also agree with whoever mentioned the sense of deflation overall.

The bloody end to Inglourios Basterds made sense in that world and the story told. The bloodbath in Django just seemed lazy to me. And the self indulgent tics (the sister flying out the room when shot for example) totally detracted from any point QT was making in drawing attention to the murky or downright awful sides of the slave trade. I just wished he'd played it straight.

The final third was poorly plotted IMO after a flawless first 2 hours.

In 1858, several male slaves are chained and being transported after being purchased at an auction in Texas by the Speck brothers. Among the slaves is Django, who has been sold away from his wife, Broomhilda. Except for Django, the slaves are freed by Dr. King Schultz, a German immigrant dentist and bounty hunter. Schultz reveals that he sought out Django to aid him in identifying the Brittle brothers, a trio of ruthless killers working for a plantation owner. The two come to an agreement: in exchange for helping locate the Brittle brothers, Schultz will free Django from slavery and give him $75 and a horse. After they hunt down and kill the Brittle brothers, Schultz takes Django on as his associate in bounty hunting, but what Django really wants is to find and save Broomhilda….

It’s often a rather nice feeling when you are proved wrong about something. After two weak films I was starting to write Tim Burton off as a great filmmaker and then along came Frankenweenie which restored my faith in the weird director. As for Quentin Tarantino; well, an article I wrote for this very website will tell you how I think he has become a somewhat tedious writer/director whose films are increasingly: Steal from/ homage to a cool cult movie Tarantino likes-acres of dreary dialogue-another steal from / homage to a cool cult movie Tarantino likes-more acres of dreary dialogue etc. The great days when Tarantino was the coolest filmmaker on the planet seem long gone and I now await each new movie from him with trepidation. I could almost have written some of my review of Django Unchained before even seeing the film. “You’d get more enjoyment from ten minutes of one of Franco Nero’s original Spaghetti Westerns”. “Dull and tedious”. “Filled with film references that kept taking me out of the film”. That kind of thing.

Well……actually, I was wrong. A few minutes into Django Unchained and I realised I had to re-evaluate my view of Tarantino. It’s no masterpiece, and still doesn’t approach the unrepeatable brilliance of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but I reckon it’s his best work since those classics. It’s a gloriously bonkers melding of revenge Western [especially of the Italian kind] and slave drama a la Mandingo. One of the things that most pleased me about it is that for once it doesn’t feel like much of it is made up of bits from other movies. It may be called Django Unchained [a play on Hercules Unchained maybe?], but it doesn’t really bear much resemblance to the many films made in Italy featuring the character of the same name, the first of which was banned for 27 years in the UK. Certain elements reminded of films like Boss Nigger and The Great Silence, but in no way during Django Unchained was I playing Spot The Steal. I would say that this means that Tarantino has grown up, but I don’t think that’s true overall. Things like his ramshackle pacing, very black humour and gleefully graphic violence are still present and correct, and for good or bad it wouldn’t be a proper Tarantino film without those would it?

The first hour really is fantastic. Jamie Foxx, never an actor I’ve really rated, and Christoph Waltz, who was born to speak Tarantino’s dialogue and is simply fabulous throughout this movie, which would be worth watching again just to study how detailed his performance is, are a terrific duo as they go around shooting freeing slaves and shooting villains. There have been many complaints about this film about it being offensive to black people. I don’t see it myself; the film shows in often nasty detail how badly blacks were treated by whites, and while it does have humour, it never mocks the slaves or their situations. Though I am white myself, I felt allowed to cheer if I wanted to at the sight of black folks wasting nasty white folks and much of the first third of the film is quite rousing. It also contains two simply brilliant sequences which really proves that Tarantino has got much of his mojo back. The first is a really chilling and suspenseful one concerning an attempt to shoot a man whose son is with him. The second involves a group of Ku Klux Khan who find they cannot see properly with their hoods, and is uproariously funny while also very clever in making us feel okay in laughing at something which in reality is not very amusing at all.

What seems like Tarantino’s fastest paced film since Kill Bill: Volume One slackens considerably after nearly an hour where the action relocates to a particularly nasty plantation. The characters talk and talk, and though the performances are all richly nuanced and this is one of the things Tarantino does, it feels like we are in a totally different film to what we have seen before. After a while he seems to wilfully be stretching things out, to the point of testing the audience, but he does reward them with some strikingly bloody shootouts which are some of the best staged and edited I’ve seen in ages, thrillingly fast but still shot so that you can see what is going on, a rarity these days. The red stuff, which as usual doesn’t look like CG, is sprayed everywhere in a film which makes its violence as brutal as possible, though at times Tarantino seems to have learnt how to be subtle. I don’t know if hardly showing a slave being torn apart from dogs and focusing instead on the faces of the people watching was a way of avoiding censorship or not, but the approach really works for the scene even if a bit of sick ‘old me thought nostalgically of how someone like Lucio Fulci [who made Westerns too though he’s not known for it] would have approached the scene!

Maybe it’s because of all the poorly directed films from the likes of Tom Hooper I’ve watched recently, but Django Unchained really does show Tarantino as a master of pacing scenes, and, while he will never be regarded as a visual stylist outside of mimicking stuff in other films [which as I’ve said he doesn’t do much of here], he uses different angles and things like close-ups very well, really enhancing moments. Brief flashbacks seem to be shot with bleached colour, though my favourite of these was a beautifully simple three or four second bit of Django’s wife where Django says what may have been the first words he ever said to her. Of course the film is still packed with things like more ‘hero’ shots than it can really take. The most irritating thing about Django Unchained is its soundtrack, which is the usual Tarantino mix of film music cues and songs. I guess the reason I have a problem with this is that I have a great interest in film music and have heard and bought far too much of it. The music, much of it from Spaghetti Westerns, does go with the images and it’s cool I suppose that, for instance, Tarantino decided not to use the main title version of the theme from Two Mules For Sister Sara but went with a slightly different arrangement heard in the actual film, but such stuff just takes me out of the film. My ‘bad’ I guess.

Though it features lots of fine acting [we'll ignore Tarantino's frankly bizarre part] and even an appearance by Franco Nero himself looking distinctly younger than 73, the stand-out for me after Waltz is the guy who plays the most horrible, reprehensible human being I have seen in a film for ages. That guy is Samuel L. Jackson, and he makes his character so repulsive that I wanted to throw something at the screen, yet he makes him real too and we are even allowed to laugh at him. It’s a truly outstanding combination of good writing and acting in a film which really does show the depths of human evil, an evil which really existed and shows mankind at its very lowest. That a film featuring such evil is also so entertaining is bound to upset the politically sensitive types. Tarantino doesn’t do careful or sensitive, and can be criticised for going too far, but I think in a strange way Django Unchained has more to say about humanity, and is able to say it, then worthy efforts like Amistad. I really think it could have done with a bit of reshaping and smoothing out, but Django Unchained really made me re-think my opinion on a filmmaker I had lost faith in. Yes, I feel happy to have been proven wrong.

An interesting point that I haven't heard discussed is that because Tarantino used a different lead editor for the first time in his entire directing career, there may have been a different dynamic in the edit suite. However, on research into Fred Raskin (editor on Django Unchained), I find with surprise that he was an assistant on the Kill Bill films, as well as Punch Drunk Love, Boogie Nights and Insomnia.

So Raskin and Tarantino will already have had some chemistry with which to build a working relationship. But as with all first time collaborations, there may have existed a little more give from Raskin's point of view, than Tarantino may have had with his long time collaborator Sally Menke.

It takes years of trust and honesty to build the kind of relationship where two collaborators can speak openly and candidly. While most people feel Django Unchained is too long, and a lot of people lay blame at the editorial department, it's important to understand that this may not be down to inability on anyone's part, but in fact due to a new working relationship that may not have been as critical as it could have been.

Once again, I am not laying any blame on anyone's doorstep. Collaborations have a huge effect on the final version of a film, from screenplay, to visual effects, to acting, to editing etc. They can create interesting results, unforeseen results, magical results, results that for better or for worse, effect the movie.

I recently read an article online that stated 'Tarantino doesn't make movies anymore- he makes Tarantino-flavoured mashups of other people's movies.' I do realize what the writer was trying to say, but there's not an awful lot of truth in the statement. The 'mashups' are tributes; iconography-laden homages to the genres Tarantino knows and loves, an there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. QT's most recent effort, Django Unchained, is another uproariously entertaining adventure, and like all of the Q-meister's output, it''s witty, well-scripted, and bloody good fun. Dialogue is just as on-point as is to be expected, with the minutae of conversation awarded ample attention. Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx are perfectly cast, and their characters are lovingly tailored and have real depth. DiCaprio has once again given a fantastic performance, and it's another string to his bow that he has now played a villain this will. Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson is also superb, playing the hilarious but sly Steven. Cinematography is beautiful, and the scenes work in the way only its' auteur can manage, gleefully self-referential and OTT. The soundtrack, which is usually a Tarantino forté, is, as usual, well-judged and completely fitting. There are sections toward the latter part of the film, however, where one musically-accompanied montage segues immediately into another one, making it seem as if Tarantino had too many songs to cram into the film. Apart from that, Django shines in every other conceivable way; it's stylish, enjoyable, and presented with the unique visual flair that Tarantino is famous for.

For the first half of this movie I was watching the best QT film I've seen for a quite a few years, probably since Pulp Fiction in fact. Full of clever dialogue and brilliant performances ESPECIALLY from Waltz and DiCaprio who both stole the show IMO, hell even Foxx wasn't too bad. However for the last half of the film it devolved into the usual over indulgent (yes I've said it) mess that we've come to expect from QT these days. The film definately had a perfect point at which it should have ended and would have been a much better film for it, unfortunately it outstays it's welcome for another hour after this at which point I was loosing the will to live.

8\10 for the first half of the film 3\10 for the second half

Still definately worth seeing but QT really needs to learn when to step away from the camera or at least hire an editor strong enough to tell him when some of his precious film needs to be excised\burnt with fire.

How this get 4/5 and The Dark Knight Rises 5/5 is beyond me (and I'm a Batmaniac). Easily Tarantino's best since Jackie Brown. Doesn't drag 1 bit, everything is necessary and in place. Will revisit it often.